Mythras and the RuneQuest Legacy
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
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Great video! Mythras is probably my favourite traditional roleplaying game, and it's great seeing it get some love.
Awesome! RQ is my "second love" in RPGs. Mythras is perhaps my favorite iteration of the d100 system. Excellent video coverage of an outstanding product family.
An eye opener after working with only d&d for years. Great overview! Agreed on the value of a robust generic fantasy rule set.
We started with Runquest 3 as well! Great video!
Thank you for the review. Great history and recap. For the Lulu copy, I have several, and no problems with the spine (if anything they're better built than the Drivethru prints. You should contact Lulu for a replacement; I'm sure they'll oblige.
It's funny, I had never even heard of Runequest until I started getting promos from Chaosium (after they finally got the Call of Cthulhu kickstarter books out the door). D&D, Cthulhu, even Rifts, etc., but not Runequest. I wonder if it was regional in the US or something. Then again, not a lot of games/comic shops in my area when I was growing up. Bless the internet and making the world a bit smaller for this kind of thing.
It is rare I see an account of RuneQuest and Mythras from someone who actually knows the history. Great review. That is a real shame about your copy from Lulu - I would have thought Lulu would replace such a bad print?
At the time I didn't report the problem... and I have since bought a Lightning Source print through DTRPG, which is nice and solid. (It arrived a couple of days after this video was filmed.)
Runequest is easily my favourite Fantasy RPG, and Glorantha is my joint favourite setting alongside Middle Earth.
Wow, I love your video.
Lo' those many years ago, while all my friends were playing that new game D & D, I discovered RuneQuest.... and have never looked back.. Got all the expansions and adventures and what minis I could find. Then followed it through the Avalon Hill years.
Now, none of my friends are playing RPG's. They all moved away or died.
Oh, and yes, I love Traveller.
Bob Swanson
Try Roll20 Bob, plenty of people play on there.
Like you, I started RuneQuest with 3rd edition and I never could get into Glorantha. I liked the sorcery rules, though I think Mythras eventually got it right. In fact, I think Mythras got everything right. It is by far my favorite system.
Yeah, the 3rd edition core set (box or book) was really poor as an entry point into Glorantha. There was nothing in it that was actually gameable. I find Glorantha fascinating, but I have only played in it a couple of times, and probably will never run it.
@@ardwulfslair Maybe it is just that I find most of the gods to be jerks :)
Same for the Greeks, tho. ;)
Love! Love! Love! RuneQuest second edition!!! The mechanics are a dream.
Call me crazy, but I do think baking the world in the system is a positive change in the modern gaming landscape. We're finally at a point where generic systems like BRP, GURPS and Mythras are in abundance, which means that systems that gear towards specific stories can easily find their own niche.
Glorantha itself and the documentation around it is valuable to read for learning more about worldbuilding, particularly religion and the day-to-day lives of people in a fantasy world. Kind of like how Blades in the Dark has contributed to re-imagining how we use inventory, planning and time management (as you'd expect from a game about heists) The new RuneQuest is valuable even if you're not planning to run any game in Glorantha.
I definitely want to check out Mythras one day, but I heard it's significantly more dungeon-crawly than RuneQuest. I hope it has its own development on the non-combat side of things that goes above a bunch of extra skills.
"Baking the world in" has been a thing since literally 1975. It's the norm rather than the exception, and has been for at least 30 years. That's fine, but an equally valid preference is either a homebrew world or setting portability.
I certainly agree that there is much to draw from the current edition of RuneQuest, whether one uses Glorantha or not. But out of the box, it's very tightly tied to that setting.
Mythras is just about exactly as dungeon-focused as any other edition of RuneQuest. You may be thinking of the Classic Fantasy product, which is a stand-alone kit for running D&D style adventures using the Mythras engine.
You may also want to check out 'Monster Island', which was made for RQ6. The title describes it well, and somewhat reminded me of the old Isle Of Dread for D&D, but in a setting neutral RQ style. There's a lot of content in it.
Very enjoyable. RQ was the first TTRPG that I had ever gotten involved with, at the tender age of mid-20s :) and that was the boxed 2nd edition, which is still prominently in my games library, along with the expansion box sets.
When I finally encountered AD&D2 a few years later, I was appalled over how primitive and limited the rules were; no hit locations?, levels?, classes?, no skills?, and of course, at upper levels, ridiculously "over the top".
The Mythras RQ fork, I was vaguely aware of, but the name, Mythras, didn't mean anything until last year when a read a Bernard Cornwall novel, of the Arthurian legend, where Mythras was a religion, of sorts, based on an acquisition from the Roman occupation of England, as I understood it. Aha! Click!
The version numbers were interesting. I have RQ2, RQ3 (boxed), and of course RQ4 RuneQuest in Glorantha. It is interesting that Chaosium refers to RiG as №4, and Design Mechanism's is №6 although it is dated 4+ years prior.
I still use my 3rd Edition RuneQuest all the time. I truly love this game and have for years.
I dappled in RPGs before I ended up prioritizing monster games. ... I still have a few. Call of Cthulhu, Ars Magica... and the boxed AH edition of RuneQuest.
Nowadays, my most likely Glorantha experience would be the wargame "Dragon Pass".
Very interesting. Have only played D&D. That was about 40 years ago. Still got the original n supplemental pamphlets.
Agree with you about preferring the non-Glorantha toolbox editions. While I own the latest RQ Glorantha slipcase, I still highly treasure my bigass copy of 6th Edition. I was told that some of the magic systems were removed from the latter Mythras book, so haven't bothered to pick it up since 6e is just fine and apparently has more content options included. Not to say Mythras is bad, of course; it's still the same game.
Pretty sure that's not the case, actually. I haven't done a page-by-page but the contents look nearly identical aside from some terminology changes.
Mythras is close to 100% identical to RQ6 (except for the smaller font!). Mythras re-organised spirits a little (for the better) and added some new combat special effects and special effects for spirit combat (which are a must). Other than that, it is the same.
@@bilharziaaeetes - Thanks for the info!
They didn't remove any of the magic systems, no. Rather, they rewrote the Animism system for better clarity. But it is absolutely fair to say if you have RQ6, you don't really need to pick up Mythras.
@@shaunb8294 - Thanks for the info Shaun!
Nice video and takes me back to my start in the RPG hobby, many years ago LOL. I still have my original 2nd Ed book, though my Games Workshop editions of the game have taken a huge beating from all the game sessions we ran back in the day. May have to dig them out again and figure out how to run solo. Thanks again for the video!
Thanks for the review. So is Mythras the best iteration of the d100 system and does it include stuff like hit locations in combat like BRP?
Yes. At least it does in their prior 6th Edition which includes the proverbial kitchen sink. Someone (a publisher IIRC) told me Mythras is almost completely the same as 6e, minus a lesser-used magic tradition or two, and with some very minimal changes.
It does include hitr locations. As far as "best," I really do like the new RuneQuest, but it's Gloantha-specific. Of the Glorantha-optional (i.e. every one of which has done substantial Glorantha material) editions, then yes, I think Mythras is the best yet.
@@ardwulfslair, and by the way, it’s pronounced like Iggy Cricktal.
I think Mythras is the best. It is the most consistent and comprehensive version of RQ to date. That can be good or bad depending on what you want. If you prefer a toolkit which has everything (Sword and Sorcery, Trad dungeon crawling Classic Fantasy ala D&D, Mythic Earth History, Steampunk Science Fiction, Hard SF, Lyonesse) Mythras has a wide area covered in a more comprehensive fashion that previous BRP supplements. These days it is fulfilling the promise BRP always had, but never effectively achieved. Mythras has put out a range of Mythic Earth supplements - Mythic Britain, Mythic Logres, Mythic Constantinople, Mythic Rome so far. Mythic Babylon is due for release this year, I believe Mythic Polynesia is next. Destined, a Mythras supers game is in the works, Luther Arkwright will get a re-issue as a standalone book, and there are more 3rd party books in the works.
Ah! Nostalgia.
Please post more about Mythras
Nice review, we used to play second edition in a low magic pseudo medieval setting.
Awesome breakdown video! Always love ttrpg content from this channel.
I was the opposite to the majority of RQ players. The reason I stopped playing it was that I felt the rules were too strongly tied to Glorantha and it felt like an assumed use of Glorantha was tied into the rules, particularly the magic.
Loving Mythras.
Sadly I won't be going anywhere near the new Chaosium RQ, as the thing people are getting excited about is the thing that I wanted to avoid all the way back in the early/mid 80s.
I would say that the PDF of RQ6 is better than the PDF of Mythras Core.
The type face and font size of Mythras is teeny tiny, (one presumes to lower the page count, which it does considerably. They are exactly the same game but RQ6 has many more pages...) but I'm in my 50s now... and even with my specs on I struggle to read some of the Mythras pages on my tablet without an awful lot of zooming in.
I've found one mistake: Pendragon does not use the BRP system but an unrealted one using a d20.
So... kind of? Pendragon does use a D20 but it's otherwise very very close to BRP. Not *technically* BRP, but BRP's assumptions underlie it.
@@ardwulfslair As long as it does not use all of the BRP mechanics, it is not BRP.
I take the opposite view: if it was just changed to use a 1-20 number range instead of a 1-100 number range, and most everything else stayed the same, then it's at very least a very close relative of the same base system, IMO.
@@ardwulfslair It is not only that. The whole concept of the opposing traits is unique to Pendragon. There is also no Power characteristic. the base damage does not come from the weapon but from the characteristics. etc.
The differences between Pendragon and BRP are so huge that you cannot say that Pendragon is part of the BRP family (which includes RQ, CoC, Mythras and many more).
Call of Cuthulhu 7th ed, isn't exactly the same as RuneQuest in mechanics, I.E. advantage and disadvantage rules, or in CoC there are no ducks nor insanity rules for RQ. Therefore according to your logic, CoC isn't BRP either. Pendragon is as BRP as any other incarnation.
You are missing out on the Games Workshop version of Runequest 3rd Edition from about 1987. It may have only been released in the UK perhaps? What is significant about it was that it too had very slim rule books, which may put some context on Mongoose, a British game company, doing the same with their first Runequest release.
That's an excellent point that I hadn't considered.
That is my preferred version due to the artwork (especially the cover)
Really great historical overview!
Very nice review. Never played RuneQuest while always being fascinated by it for some reason. Looks like I'll have to find a copy of the 2nd edition/Classic, as that seems to have been the high water mark of the original creative impulse. Thanks!
It's also - and I didn't mention this - only like $20 in hardback direct from Chaosium.
@@ardwulfslair Oh, that's good to know then! Thanks
I truly wish that someone would put up a really good scan of the 3rd edition Runequest product on DrivethruRpg or something. 3rd edition is my favorite edition though I did start with 1st/2nd Edition back in 78-79'. I've got the box set but I prefer to read on PDF these days. There is a scanned version out there, but it's slightly blurry unfortunately which bothers my eyes quickly.
Mythras is awesome but has the absolute worse font and type size to read. I find myself growing quickly eye fatigued, which causes me to have a hard time focusing on the page. Basically where as I can read a WotC, Pinnacle etc book with no issues, paragraphs in is about the most I can do at one time of a The Design Mechanism book. :/ Though I will point out that Lyonesse is much better and a real gem of a book, worth owning.
I hold out hope that Lawrence and Pete will someday do a revamp of the book and if they need to, break it up into two books so they can adjust font and type, maybe evening adjust ink color and contrast. Until then it's basically 3rd edition RQ, Harn, GURPS 3rd Ed. or Savage Worlds for me.
I do virtually all of my rules reading in PDF with a tablet, so the smallish type hasn't really been as issue for me. I can see how some folks might get irritated with using the physical book at the table.
Agreed on the font. I understand the reasons but I think it has hurt them in the long run. If you can get hold of a second hand copy of RuneQuest6, it is almost identical to Mythras and the text is much more reasonable, and as a result is 200 pages longer. It is doubtful a new edition is on the cards any time soon although most of their campaign supplements will be standalone from now on, and will likely be much more readable, in the Lyonesse style.
@@bilharziaaeetes The layout and font used in Lyonesse was truly a breath of fresh air. Definitely no regrets on the purchase of the physical book and pdf. :)
If they put out a new edition of Mythras (less exposition and justification of rules) with a larger font and easier to read format I would buy four more. I switched from running D&D games to Call of Cthulhu and on to Mythras over the last year. I offered my players a switch to a D&D campaign for a change, and I was declined. So Mythras it is. It feels like a ruleset for life as we can play just about any genre we like, rules heavy or stripped back, gritty or narrative, bronze age to space age. It is worth a look.
Unfortunately I can't read it before bed in order to become fully fluent with the rules as one or two paragraphs put my eyes to sleep. It is the only reason I don't recommend a purchase of a hard copy for now. Even the tables have tiny font.
I'll play D&D with my kids.
@@moodymac Gonna have to strongly agree with you on that. In a heartbeat I'd buy multiple copies to use for my home game and would drop trying to use older editions of RQ or GURPS for that matter.
The font size/type is terrible in the Mythras books. :/
Nice video!
Iv just discovered Mythras and Im thinking of buying!
Here in Sweden we have alot of d100 games, the oldest one known as Dragons and Demons, or DoD for short. They have alot in common with Runequest and the Basic RPG system!
Im probably going to buy the Mythras game!
We here in the US have VERY limited visibility on non-English RPGs. Even so I have heard of Drakar och Demoner, although I don't know that I knew anything about the mechnics.
Drakar Och Demoner is everything I wanted D&D to be and I thank your country for the recent translation. Funnily enough, it was built off a modified version of RuneQuest.
Maybe you can Talk about the new BRP from Chaosium
Hi Ardi. I would be curious to know your views on the Harnmaster system compared to RuneQuest. I know you love both, but which is better?
Great question! Broadly, the two systems are pretty similar: roll-under percentile systems. But HarnMaster is very tighly focused on running games for Harn, and as a result, it is not incredibly flexible. RuneQuest, depending on the edition, can be *very* flexible, although I think it shines best in grounded fantasy with a strong Medieval or Ancients vibe. Chaosium''s current Adventures in Glorantha edition is very narrowly focused on Glorantha, but as I think is shown by 3rd and 6th editions, at heart there's a ton you can do with it.
TL/DR: if you're using Harn and want to stick closely to its lore and cosmology, HarnMaster is hard to beat. If you're doing something different, RuneQuest is preferable.
Was is wrong that, while watching my original Runequest 2nd edition box set, including "Foes" and "Apple Lane". I feel dirty,m but I won't tell.
nice overview, but you mentioned Hero Quest, where does that fit into all this?
It's a different system, so I didn't go into it. But that would make a great follow-up video! (I have both editions.)
"...suspicious of Mongoose..." Suspicious implies some level of doubt. Personally I'm entirely confident that anything Mongoose puts out will be chock full of typos and stupid editing mistakes, and will likely be dropped without warning the moment their mayfly attention span jumps to the next shiny license they inexplicably get a hold of. Their bungled RQ stuff is a fine example of why, but it's hardly their only one. They were particularly dreadful on their miniatures games lines. Just ask anyone who played any of the A Call To Arms stuff how well they were handled - particularly Noble Armada and Star Fleet Battles.
I'm told Traveller seems to be avoiding their customary incompetence (perhaps someone finally fired "Lyin' Matt" Sprange?) but my distrust of the company based on past performance runs so deep I'll never buy anything from them again.
Hey, they certainly don't have a spotless reputation; their d20 product was slapdash (though they were one of many, many publishers that was true of), and as mentioned in this video the RuneQuest line was bungled fairly badly and only course-corrected near the end of the license.
On the other hand, they've had Traveller since 2008, and I have followed the line very closely. Certainly there have been issues (and rather a lot of ugly product for the 1st edition) but on the whole I would call those issues minor. Traveller appears to be doing very well for them, and there's no sign of that changing.
Their 2nd go at Runequest (MRQ2) re-done by Lawrence Whitacker and Pete Nash, along with the re-do of Elric of Melnibone, is very, very good. And Arcania of Legend - Blood Magic and Elementalism are both good supplements (I'm a tad biased to the Elementalism one as I did the conversion from their D20 product), other than that...